Announcing the Regex Maven for Android

I am currently attending a course learning Mobile Application development using web technologies. We look at HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and how to put all these together to create an application that can be installed and used on various mobile devices.

As a project in the course each one of us had to come up with an idea, implement it, and upload to the Android Market. (aka. Google Play).

I started to build the Regex Maven project and uploaded the first pre-alpha version.

What is Regex Maven?

You might ask. It is a tool to learn and remember Regular Expressions regardless of your environment.

That means, the examples will be show for several languages such as Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Java, etc., and for other environments such as grep, or vim, or NotePad++.

It will show both the similarities and the differences between the various dialects of the language we call Regular Expressions or Regexes. It will also show how to use Regexes in the various environments.

Install Regex Maven for Android.

Why is this good for you?

If you don't know Regexes yet, you will find a small, but clear tutorial so you too will be able to use the power of regular expressions.

If you already know Regexes to some extent, and even if you are a master of Regular Expressions, you will find new ways to think about them, and new ways to explain them to your co-workers.

There is already the beginning of a Cheat-sheet for Regular expressions with explanations. Further examples will follow soon.

There is going to be a Quiz as well, where you can check and improve your knowledge.

Install Regex Maven for Android.

The current state

It is really only a skeleton now. A pre-alpha version. There are several reasons I already uploaded it.

One of them is the Release early, Release Often mantra. I believe in getting feedback from the field.

I am also very much in favor making sure the application can be installed and used in the real environment at a very early stage of the development. I saw many projects fail after months of work as the developers declared it to be "finished" just to find out that they have no clue how to distribute and install the application.

Last, but not least, there is a

Competition

among the students of the course. The person who created the application that has the most downloads by the Wednesday evening (28th November) will win a mobile phone.

Install Regex Maven for Android.

Now let me go back to work on the application so I can release a better version in a few hours.